Vince Smith, Tom Shubert and his wife Kathy have generously pledged $20,000 to establish the Chief Master Sergeant Robert L. Smith Scholarship in honor of Smith’s father. The scholarship will support a junior or senior HHP student in the Air Force ROTC program.

Smith retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2007 with nearly 23 years of service. He currently serves as Adjudicator for the Physical Disability Board of Review, a Department of Defense agency charged with reviewing disability claims of all active, Reserve and Guard Military members who were required to leave the service of the nation due to physical and/or mental issues caused by their service in defense of the United States of America.

Vince graduated from ECU in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science degree in History. A native of La Grange, North Carolina, Vince also holds a master’s degree in Human Resource Management from Webster University. After Tom and Kathy Shubert graduated from ECU and received their commission in 1974, Kathy went on to attend Aircraft Maintenance Officer training and then served as a Maintenance Officer in Texas and Georgia before leaving active duty. Tom attended the Air Force’s undergraduate pilot training program and then went onto operational assignments piloting B-52 strategic bombers and airlift aircraft in the United States and Asia. He then attended the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and was awarded a Master of Arts in National Security Affairs.

In 2005, after 30 years of active service, Tom retired from the Air Force as a Colonel and entered Civil Service with his first position being in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the Country Director for Poland and the Baltic States followed by work as the Country Director for Southeast Asia. Currently he serves as Chief of the Air Operations Division, Office of Legislative Liaison, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force in Washington, D.C. He is responsible for executing over 250 foreign and domestic trips annually by hundreds of Members of Congress and congressional staff, as well as personally escorting Congressional Delegations throughout the world.

Kathy currently serves as an Admissions Coordinator with George Mason University and is responsible for reviewing undergraduate transfer student applications. In addition to her degree from ECU, she also holds a Master of Science degree in Education from the University of Southern California and is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology at George Mason University.